Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/243

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Phipps
235
Phipps

motion for taking them into consideration in the following session. He explained that he had been an enemy to all discussion of them while there was any probability of the king's recovery, but should now be for ‘granting the utmost concessions, not successively, but with a view to at once closing the question to the satisfaction of the country’ (ib. xxiii. 853–4). Thenceforth his vote was either given in person or by proxy for emancipation, until that measure was carried in 1828. On Perceval's death in June 1812 Mulgrave recommended the inclusion of the moderate whigs, with Canning and Wellesley in the cabinet, and was willing to retire to make way for them (Twiss, Life of Eldon, ii. 210; Phipps, Memoirs of R. P. Ward, i. 278). He was created Earl of Mulgrave and Viscount Normanby on 7 Sept. 1812, and retained office under Lord Liverpool until 1818, when, at his own suggestion, Wellington replaced him as master of the ordnance. The latter complimented him on the benefits which the department had derived from his superintendence (ib. ii. 10, 11), and the prince regent insisted that Mulgrave should retain a seat in the cabinet. In May 1820 Mulgrave finally retired, and was created G.C.B. He had in 1809 been appointed an elder brother of Trinity House, and vice-admiral of the county of York. He died at his seat in Yorkshire on 7 April 1831.

Mulgrave's talents both as a statesman and soldier were respectable, if not brilliant. He excelled as a debater, and in his military capacity was entirely free from professional jealousy. He discerned Wellington's merits in his early Peninsular campaigns, predicting that he would be a second Marlborough (Haydon, Autobiogr.) He was a lover and a connoisseur of art. Haydon, who described him as ‘a fine character, manly, perfectly bred, a high tory, and complete John Bull,’ found in him a generous patron, and he also befriended Jackson, the portrait-painter, and Wilkie. He suggested to Haydon his picture of Dentatus, for which he paid him 210 guineas, and commissioned Wilkie to paint ‘The Rent Day’ and ‘Sunday Morning.’ Mulgrave's collection, which was sold at Christie's in May 1832, contained Rembrandt's ‘Jewish Bride,’ Vandyck's ‘St. Sebastian shot with Arrows,’ a head of Christ by Titian, landscapes by Rubens and Claude, besides studies for several of Wilkie's chief pictures. A portrait of Mulgrave was painted by Sir T. Lawrence and engraved by Turner. Another by Beechey, engraved by Skelton, represents him as governor of Scarborough Castle. In an engraving by Ward, from a picture by Jackson, he is depicted in company with Sir George Beaumont and his own sons Augustus and Edmund.

Mulgrave married, on 20 Oct. 1795, Martha Sophia, daughter of Christopher T. Maling of West Herrington, Durham. She died on 17 Oct. 1849, having had issue four sons and five daughters. One only of the latter survived childhood. The two elder sons, Constantine Henry, first marquis of Normanby, and Sir Charles Beaumont, are separately noticed; the fourth, Hon. Augustus Frederick (b. 1809), is honorary canon of Ely and chaplain to the queen. Portraits of Lady Mulgrave were engraved by Cooper and Clint from paintings by Jackson and Hoppner.

The third son, Edmund Phipps (1808–1857), born on 7 Dec. 1808, matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford, on 22 Nov. 1825, and graduated B.A. in 1828 and M.A. in 1831. He was called to the bar from the Inner Temple on 15 June 1832, and went the northern circuit. He was successively recorder of Scarborough and Doncaster. In 1847 he published a pamphlet entitled ‘The Monetary Crisis, with a Proposal for present relief and increased safety in future,’ in which he proposed to meet the existing depreciation in the value of property and the deficiency in floating capital by extensions of the Bank Charter Act of 1844. In the following year he issued ‘Adventures of a 1,000l. Note; or Railway Ruin reviewed,’ showing that railways were not the causes of the existing crisis, and that the stoppage of such undertakings would check the circulation of capital and aggravate distress. In 1854 he set forth the advantages of trust societies and public trustees in ‘A Familiar Dialogue on Trusts, Trustees, and Trust Societies between Mr. Arden and Sir George Ferrier.’ In 1848 he rendered into English blank verse through German versions the Danish poem ‘King René's Daughter,’ by Henrik Hertz; his rendering is contained in vol. xxxvi. of Lacy's ‘Acting Edition of Plays.’ Phipps was also author of ‘Memoirs of the Life of Robert Plumer Ward.’ He died on 27 Oct. 1857, at his house in Wilton Crescent, London. By his wife Louisa, eldest daughter of Major-general Sir Colin Campbell (1776–1847), sometime governor of Nova Scotia and Ceylon, he had a son, Edmund Constantine Henry (b. 1840), who was British minister at Brussels from 1900 to 1907.

[Lodge's Genealogy of the Peerage; Burke's Peerage, 1895; Doyle's Baronage (with a portrait, after Jackson); Ret. Memb. Parl.; Parl. Hist. vols. xxvi.–xxxvi. and Parl. Debates, 1st ser. passim; Lord Colchester's Diary, i. 264, 531, ii. 334; Alison's Hist. of Europe, iii. 116–118, vi. 364–5; Rose's Diary, ii. 133, 174–5,